Conjugate Spinor Solution of the Dirac Equation for the Hydrogen Atom

Abstract

It is shown the central field Dirac equation can be simplified through the use of real conjugate spinors to substitute for the upper and lower components of the bi-spinor eigensolutions. This substitution reduces the Dirac equation for the hydrogen atom to the problem of solving a single second order differential equation similar to a Klein-Gordon equation but containing additional terms to take account of the spin on the electron. The bi-spinor wave functions are readily constructed once the solution is known in terms of the conjugate spinors.